Back to the Beginning

July 31, 2012

So vacation is over, and it’s time to return to work. You can ease in, find your place, and go with the flow, or you can go back to the beginning.

My preference has always been going back to the beginning. It becomes another gift from your vacation, for vacationSTRETCH is what has given you enough space and distance from what had been the everyday routine to pull it off.

Usually, everyone else expects you’ll go back to the beginning too, which is quite nice! They assume that finding your place within whatever is happening is tougher, and probably unnecessary, for you were gone when it all started, and it can continue to flow without you. They welcome the possibility that you’ll lead in a different way.

Going back to the beginning is different from starting with your why. You know why it is you do what you do, and what your HO‘OHANA is, and you embrace it (or you wouldn’t have gone on vacation; you would have quit to do something else.)

Going back to the beginning is about re-experiencing that start-up enthusiasm, where you had once begun with your why definitively known, and firmly in place. Your anticipation was at its sweetest and its eagerest, because there was no baggage you needed to carry; you could simply step forward and start fresh, but with the solid conviction of what you knew.

When you are at the beginning, nothing is tired and worn out.

When you are at the beginning, all thoughts and ideas have some adjacent possible connected to them (see footnote).

When you are at the beginning, work is not hard. Work is not tough. Work is only compelling (until you make it hard, or make it tough, and you don’t have to go that route, now do you.)

I’m not pointing this out to burden you, but to liberate you!

What will it take for you to join me here, back at our beginning?

Every since Managing with Aloha came to be for me, I’ve felt so fortunate to know that ALOHA is at every beginning. Every single one, no matter the circumstance.

ALOHA is something I never want to underestimate; there’s so much it can be for me, for my team, for my friends, for my family, and for us — you and me.

“The phrase captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation… the adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself” — if you, as manager, are willing to take that leap into a better future, bringing your workplace with you.

“The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them,” wrote Steven Johnson in the Wall Street Journal, “Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations. Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door you open. You begin in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you haven’t visited yet. Once you open one of those doors and stroll into the room, three new doors appear, each leading to a brand new room that you couldn’t have reached from your original starting point. Keep opening new doors, and eventually you’ll have built a palace.”

Know this: Your path of adjacent possibles has led you to a unique moment in time, and it’s all yours for the taking.